Friday, November 05, 2004

Wonderful graphic in Washington Post explains Red vs. Blue -- county by county

The TV networks and major news rags concentrated on which states went for Bush and which went for Kerry. If you read serious newspapers, e.g. The New York Times, you saw coverage and maps that teased out demographic details. But the Washington Post came out with a graphic that really depicts that the electorate is split fundamentally urban vs. rural, merely by showing which counties across the country went which way. The graphic shows the margin of victory county-by-county nationwide (click for full size):

Observe how few counties nationwide Kerry won! A very small number of counties with large populations totaled up to Kerry's popular vote, nearly equalling Bush's. Virtually every rural county in the nation went for Bush.

As they say, you do the math. I'd like to see charts like this for other recent Presidential races, including Clinton's two wins. This is much more informative than the by-state Red vs. Blue maps.